


Two-Way Street

by Sholio



Category: MacGyver (TV)
Genre: Best Friends, Character Study, Episode Tag, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Episode tag for "D.O.A.: MacGyver". Mac's been rescuing himself, and other people, for a long time now. Sometimes he forgets that it works both ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two-Way Street

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ankaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ankaret/gifts).



> I saw your prompts in Yuletide Madness and jumped at the chance to revisit an old favorite! This is a tag for "D.O.A.: MacGyver" - the season two episode in which Mac loses his memory and the baddies convince him that Pete's the enemy. Also contains brief reference to "Family Matter".

Mac's had some long days, but this one just won't end, and it doesn't help that he's nowhere near the top of his game right now -- still wobbly and off balance, with a headache that saws deeper into his brain as he answers endless rounds of questions from the local cops. He's got nothing but respect for cops, knows they're just doing their job, but when their questions start poking into sore areas -- bringing up the lingering gaps in his memory -- he starts snapping at them, and before he knows what's happening, he's in the ER with a harassed-looking young doctor shining a light in his eyes.

They run some tests and release him with a bottle of painkillers and a slip of paper with the number of a therapist who has Phoenix clearance. According to the doc, the amnesia was mostly shock-related, not physical trauma. It'll all come back, the doc says, and if it doesn't, there are people who can help with that.

But there are still gaps, and the scariest thing of all is that he doesn't even know how many or how large. How can you ever know how much you _don't_ know? The once-solid floor of his mind is riddled with a patchwork of rotten boards, and he'll never know one is there until he steps on it and falls through, into the dark hole underneath.

Things are coming more easily now, at least. When the cops first started questioning him, the past couple of days were sharp and everything before that was a haze with occasional clear memories, mostly of Pete, with a few crystal-bright moments from his childhood. It's pretty much all clear now -- except every once in a while, he'll run up against one of those things he doesn't know.

It hits him, really hits him, when the examining nurse asks his blood type, and he just sits there, mouth open, and realizes that he can't tell her. That's when he starts shaking, and he tells himself it's just because of the headache, because he hasn't eaten all day, because he's exhausted and he almost died and this day just _won't freakin' end._

But the thing he can't say out loud is _What if this doesn't stop?_ He's always depended on his brain. No, it's more than that. He _is_ his brain, and sure, that's such a ludicrously obvious statement that he'd probably be laughing at himself if he weren't clinging to calmness and sanity by his fingernails at the moment. But he's never realized before just how much he has to lose -- and just how terrified he is of losing it.

He must look like hell, because they keep wanting to know if he's got someone to pick him up. He says he'll drive himself, and then realizes that his car is -- where _is_ his car, anyway? Back at the docks? Did Pete do something with it?

He could call Carol, but he doesn't have a good way to get in touch with her, and besides, she's had a hell of a day too. And he could call a cab, but when he asks the duty nurse if he can use the phone, it's Pete's office number that his fingers punch in. He doesn't really expect Pete to be there -- hasn't seen Pete in more hours than he can count, not since things got chaotic at the graveyard in the aftermath of the explosion, but he figures Pete's had his own hell of meetings and interrogations to get through, and it's almost midnight. Surely the guy's home in bed by now.

Pete picks up on the first ring. "Thornton."

"No secretary?" Mac says, even though something in him relaxes a little, just to hear a familiar voice. (And maybe some of that relief is just because he _knows_ it's familiar, but he won't think about that.) "Budget cuts?"

"It's past her quitting time. MacGyver, thank God; where _are_ you?"

"Hospital." He feels a slow trickle of guilt seeping through the blanket of exhaustion that surrounds him. The idea that he maybe should've called and let Pete know where he'd gone hadn't even occurred to him. Pete's probably been going out of his mind looking for him these past couple of days.

"Hospital? Are you all right?"

"Other than amnesia and gettin' shot in the head, I'm fine," he says dryly, and then regrets it when Pete makes a sputtering sound. "No, seriously, I _am_ fine, or I will be. Guess they won't let me go without someone to drive me home, though."

"Which hospital?" Pete asks, and the easing of tension at being able to hand off some of this burden to someone else is so huge that his knees almost buckle. The conversation's kind of a blur after that.

He drowses on a hard plastic chair in the waiting area, so exhausted that he can barely stay awake despite the headache stabbing an icepick into his brain. Every time his eyes start to droop, though, he jerks himself awake. He's not so self-deluding that he can't admit to himself what he's really afraid of -- that he'll lose it all again, that he'll wake up and he won't know who he is or where he is. Again.

Of all the things he could have forgotten, it's a cruel irony that he hasn't forgotten the terror of _not knowing_ \-- waking up with everything strange, from the woman bending over him to the sight of his own face in a mirror.

He doesn't want to take the pain pills 'til he's home -- there's no way he'd stay awake if he did -- so he tries to keep himself focused by going through his childhood memories. His first day at school. Fishing with his grandpa. Learning the Periodic Table. His mother's cookies. Almost blowing up the high school chem lab. But it's fraught with frustration, because he has no way to check. He can't remember most of his senior year of high school in any great detail -- is that because nothing interesting happened, or did it used to be there? What was the name of that girl he took to the Homecoming Dance in tenth grade? What about the kid across the street, that he used to play hockey with? Growing frustration adds a razor's edge to the headache, and he refuses to admit, even to himself, how much of a relief it is when Pete walks in.

"You're going to be the death of me, MacGyver," Pete says, giving him a hand up.

"I'm going to be the death of _me_ at this rate." His whole body's stiffened up; he tries not to limp as they head out into the warm California night. Neither of them speaks, probably because they're both too tired. Pete looks worn down and crumpled inside his suit. There are dark shadows under his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Mac says, and he doesn't know he's going to say it until the words are out of his mouth.

Pete unlocks the doors of his car before he answers. "For God's sake, whatever for?"

Mac waves a hand, taking in the parking lot, the hospital ... everything. He's not even really sure; he just knows Pete ought to be home in bed, damn it, not dragging a freelancer agent's sorry tail home from the hospital.

"Get in," Pete tells him, and opens the door.

The drive gives him even more entirely unwanted time to think. He senses that Pete's giving him space on purpose, and wonders if he's acting different -- wonders if the changes in him run so deep that even he isn't aware of them.

Pete won't press him to talk. Mac remembers enough to be sure of that, at least. But he's also pretty sure that the things he isn't saying are going to crush him if he doesn't break the silence. "You've got a son, right?"

Pete glances at him sideways. "Yeah ...?" he says, letting it trail off into a question.

"Michael." The name had been frustratingly elusive, hovering just beyond the tip of his tongue, but now it's there, as if it's always been. Because it always _has_ been. He just has to keep telling himself that. "Michael and Connie."

"And a bayou in Louisiana," Pete says, and he keeps sneaking glances out of the corner of his eye.

"Yeah," Mac says. He remembers it -- the swamp, and Bonner, and Pete beating the crap out of the guy. At least, he thinks he remembers it all, but he doesn't know how to figure out whether some of it's missing.

"Are you testing yourself?" Pete asks. His eyes are on the road now, firmly forward, giving Mac his space. "Checking your memory?" After a pause, which Mac doesn't fill, Pete adds, "Because that's what I think I'd be doing, in your shoes."

Mac's never been intentionally dishonest with Pete, at least that he can recall. He doesn't intend to start now. "I'm not sure how much I've lost, Pete."

"Did the docs say anything about that?"

Mac looks out the window at the lights on the bay, smearing into a colorful blur. He wonders if Carol is out there on her boat. God, he's tired. "They said it's probably shock and stress. No actual brain damage. They think it'll come back on its own, and if it doesn't, there's techniques to help."

He expects a platitude, a comforting "Well, that's all right, isn't it?" that won't be comforting at all. But he clearly underestimates Pete, and how well Pete knows him, because after a brief silence Pete says, "That's not really enough for you, though, is it?"

"No." His hand closes into a fist on his leg. "What if the things I can't remember are the things I _need_ to remember, Pete? What if I run into a situation when something I used to know woulda gotten me out?" And what he doesn't say, but maybe Pete can hear anyway, is _What can I trust when I can't trust my own brain?_

Pete glances over at him. "You'll improvise. It's what you do, and I've never met anyone who can do it like you can. You make it look easy."

Despite the headache, despite the fear and worry, he laughs. "It's not."

"I know," Pete says, and then turns his eyes back to the road.

They park at the curb, downstairs from the loft. Pete lets the engine idle for a moment, then asks quietly, "Want me to come up?"

"I'm all right."

"That's not what I asked."

_What can I trust when I can't trust my own brain?_ The answer, Mac realizes, is sitting next to him, in a rumpled suit and a blocky Fedmobile.

There's no one else he'd rather have at his back, in a crisis or at any other time, really.

Of course, the fact that so many of his other friends are _flakes_ means that the rest of the options are kind of ... flaky. Not that they aren't great people. Just ... not hugely reliable.

Pete is. Pete's always been. And suddenly, with the weight of everything he can't remember bearing him down, Mac realizes that he's never appreciated it more than he does at this moment.

"I just need to go up and crash for a while." Mac reaches out, slaps Pete on the shoulder, but his hand lingers and the grip turns tight. "Thanks, Pete. Get some rest."

Pete looks a little startled, then raises a hand to pat his. "Don't worry, I plan to head home and sleep like the dead." He smiles a little. "Things'll look better in the morning."

"They usually do," Mac says, and he slides out of the passenger side before weariness and the relaxation that comes at the end of a hard case makes him say something so sentimental it'll only embarrass them both. "See you at Phoenix."

"Don't rush; I'll keep the hordes at bay, for a while at least." Pete leans forward to see him through the still-open door, and grins. "So tell me something, MacGyver. How is it, out of all the trawler captains in the bay, you get picked up by one who looks like _that?_ You do realize that if I got shot in the head and fell in the ocean, I'd probably be fished out by Popeye's uglier cousin?"

Mac laughs. "Good _night,_ Pete." He slams the door on his friend's unrepentant grin.

He's still smiling as he climbs the stairs to the loft. And he also realizes something else, something that startles him a little -- he's not afraid of falling asleep, not like he was in the ER. If he forgets who he is, Pete will remind him -- like today, at the cemetery; like tonight, in the car. The awareness that when he falls, he might not always have to catch himself, is a realization that leaves him a little breathless.

Mac's been used to saving himself, and other people, for a hell of a long time.

Sometimes he forgets it's a two-way street.


End file.
